The Usual Chaos

Walking: I took an out of town trip (by car for a change) last weekend. I wanted to knock off a few Volksmarch events. I am now just two events away from finishing the America's Gardens programs and one event away from the second Historic Churches book. The events I did were in New Castle, Delaware and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The latter is also qualifies for three other programs (State Capital, Hooray for Hollywood, and Baseball Walks). Both walks were very enjoyable, although the New Castle walk reminded me that uneven brick sidewalks are inherently slow to walk on. The stretch along the Delaware River was a lot faster, though I'm not fond of out and back routing. The Harrisburg walk was slow, too, largely because I am such a compulsive reader of historic signs. I also made time to stop inside the Capitol, which is domed and has a spectacular rotunda. All in all, it was a pleasant weekend and a good way to take advantage of lovely fall weather.

The Week: In addition to work, I had an AMITA Happy Hour to go to on Tuesday night. It is always good to converse with intelligent people, but the place where it was held was annoyingly loud and I left with a mild headache. \

Anne Sheldon was telling stories and reading poems in Friendship Heights on Wednesday night. I like to support these events when I can. I particlarly liked her poem about Rumpelstiltskin.

I also did a lot of work. Some of it was the sort of stuff I am even good at, namely learning rapidly enough about a subject to explain it to senior leadership.

Public service announcement: I had to bite my tongue and not correct someone very senior on this, but I can write it here. The word "ephemerides," which is the plural of "ephemeris" has 5 syllables. That is, it is "eff em err i deez" not "eff em e rides." Yes, really. Blame the Greeks.

Assassins: I saw Assassins at St. Mark's Church on Friday night. I've come to the conclusion that the major problem with community theatre is sound systems with excessive bass. Once again, several of the performers could not be heard over the orchestra. But it is a musical I know well, so not being able to hear every word was not as critical as it might be. I was impressed by Chad Wheeler as Charles Guiteau and Justin latus as John Hinkley. The weakest performance was WIll Emory's as the Balladeer (and Lee Harvey Oswald). I thought that some of the other performances were a bit overdone, but am not sure whether to blame the actor or director in those csses. At any rate, it was worth seeing but I'm not sure that it would sell somebody on the show if they were not already familiar with it.

Tellebration: Last night was Tellebration. This is an evening of storytelling (for adults) all over the world. Voices in the Glen put on our event at Kensington Row Bookshop and had six tellers. I thought the highlight was Geraldine Buckley's personal story about scattering her father's ashes. There was an interesting mix of stories (whcih I might have arranged ina different order, but that is the MC's privilege) and a good turnout. I can't ask for more than that.

A Second Chance: I saw A Second Chance at Signature Theatre this afternoon. This is a new show and I'd call it more of a song cycle than a musical. It's about two people - Jenna and Daniel - who meet and fall in love. Jenna is divorced and looking for her ideal man, while Daniel is recently widowed and not sure he is ready for a new relationship. The book is witty enough (in a very New York way) and the music was pleasant enough, but not a lot really happens. Obviously, a two person show like this does a lot to balance the budget. The chemistry between the performers was helpful, by the way, probably because Brian Sutherland and Diane Sutherland are an actual married couple. I don't think I'd call this essential, but it is nice to have a chance to see new musical works. (This did have a previous concert version in New York, so it doesn't completely qualify as new, but close enough.)